


encouragement

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Confessions, First Kiss, M/M, Walking Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-24 01:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16170434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Aichi can't figure out how to tell Kai how he feels. Turns out, all he needs is a little push in the right direction.





	encouragement

When he was nervous, Aichi tended to stammer and ramble; it was a marked difference from his young years, where he would barely speak at all. He had no real reason to be nervous, he reflected during a short period of silence, because he was walking home like any other day, through the park like any other day, with Kai–

–not like any other day. 

Kai lived nowhere near Aichi, which made his offer to walk Aichi home from Card Capital unusual. More unusual still was Kai’s insistence, despite it being out of the way, and the fact that Kai had waited until Aichi had left to approach him with the offer, away from the others. 

Aichi’s mind had taken off in a hundred different directions as he tried fruitlessly to parse Kai’s intentions.  _He just wants you to get home okay,_ but Aichi walked home on his own all the time,  _he doesn’t want to go home just yet,_ but Miwa and Misaki were still at the shop and he could cardfight with them,  _he wants to spend time with you,_ and it was this one that had him stammering through his lousy attempts at small talk, because  _why_.

“-and if you’d believe it, the student council president even came by to see what was in the new boosters!” 

Kai hadn’t said much to this point but he made a small noise in the back of his throat. “What clan was he interested in?”

The question took Aichi by surprise; not that he thought Kai wasn’t listening to him, but he wasn’t expecting Kai to be invested in the goings-on at Miyaji Academy. “Huh? Oh, uh…” Aichi frowned and thought back. “Great Nature? He seemed genuinely interested in it, actually.”

“Mm.”

They slipped back into silence. Aichi struggled to find something to talk about; Kai always listened when Aichi talked about his day, never seemed bored or disinterested, and Aichi appreciated that. There was always something for Aichi to talk about, even if Kai’s day consisted mostly of  _it was fine, I went to class,_ and on one rare occasion  _I fed a stray cat this morning on the way to school._  (The image of Kai pouring out some food into a bowl for a cat was an endearing one, and when Aichi had said so, Kai’s face reddened as he looked away.)

So  _why_ was it so hard to talk to him today?

_He wants to spend time with you._

No, that couldn’t be it. He and Kai spent lots of time together at the shop. Ever since – Aichi didn’t let himself dwell on it too long – the aftermath of the Link Joker incident, Kai had offered to cardfight him almost every day.

So what?

“Kai-kun?” he ventured, voice timid.

“Yeah?”

Kai stopped abruptly when he realized Aichi was several feet behind him. Aichi tried and failed to look less nervous than he felt. His nervousness only made him more confused; what did he have to be nervous  _about?_ They’d been friends for a long time, despite everything, so something as trivial as talking about his day shouldn’t feel like–

“Aichi?”

Aichi stood rooted to the sidewalk, thoughts racing and colliding like neurons bouncing around in a big empty space.

“Are you feeling okay?”

Kai’s hand on his shoulder was firm, steadying. His eyes, usually laser-focused, were searching Aichi’s face.

There was a silly trope in the cheap romance novels his mom read in her free time where the man and the woman held each other in their arms and “got lost in each other’s eyes.” Aichi had always thought it over the top and cliché, until the moment Kai brushed the hair from Aichi’s face and stared into his eyes and Aichi suddenly realized why it was so hard to talk to Kai today.

His knees nearly gave out.

“Hey.”

Kai bent and threw Aichi’s arm around his shoulder, his own arm slinking around Aichi’s waist for support. Aichi knew his face was crimson but he couldn’t help it; he just had to hope that Kai thought he was embarrassed for almost collapsing on the sidewalk from– sleep deprivation, that’s right, from the… speech he had to write for the Miyaji graduation. That would be a good excuse, surely, and Kai would understand that, right?

“Aichi.”

He looked up and saw his front door.

“Oh,” Aichi managed weakly. “Thanks…”

“It’s a good thing I walked you home,” Kai said, lifting a hand to knock on the door, “otherwise–”

“W-wait!”

Time seemed to freeze as Kai looked from his hand, half-folded into a fist, to Aichi’s fingers, wrapped around it.

“Wait,” Aichi said again, breathlessly. “D-don’t knock, I– I–”

Kai seemed to realize, on some level, that Aichi wanted to talk to him before they parted, so he lowered his arm. Aichi’s fingers slipped from around Kai’s hand. His face was so hot he thought he might actually faint this time.

Kai’s slender hand was soft, and Aichi felt the lightheadedness returning as he thought about how he wouldn’t mind holding it again.

“I– I don’t want Emi to fuss,” he said in a rush, looking at his feet, “and– and I just, I–”

“Someone should fuss, you almost collapsed on the street,” Kai said exasperatedly.

Aichi laughed, voice shaky. “Ah, well, I’m fine now!”

“Your face is crimson.”

“Aha, well, I’m just… embarrassed! About almost fainting.”

Kai’s eyes had narrowed to their usual cardfighting gaze, as though he were plotting to burn a hole right through Aichi’s strategy before he even played it. Both hands gripped Aichi’s shoulders, firmer than before.

“K-Kai-kun, you’re making me nervous…”

“Tell me what’s wrong, and if you tell me nothing is, I’m going to knock on this door and tell your mother that you have a fever and need to sleep on the couch while she pours hot broth down your throat for three days.”

The worst part of this threat was that Aichi couldn’t be sure Kai wouldn’t do it.

But still, was it any worse than the alternative?

He sighed. “Um… Kai-kun, why… did you want to walk me home?”

“Are you stalling to avoid answering my question?”

“N-No! Not at all, I just…”

Kai crossed his arms, and this mild gesture of annoyance was the tipping point for Aichi’s twin desires to keep his silly crush to himself and tell Kai – Kai, who saved Aichi from a life of loneliness, who gave Aichi’s life meaning, who literally saved his life and never gave up on him when Aichi had given up on himself – what he meant to Aichi.

“I-I need to know. Why did you want to walk me home?”

It wasn’t what Kai was expecting; he uncrossed his arms and frowned. “Because I wanted to spend time with you,” he said as though it were the most obvious answer in the world.

Aichi swallowed. His throat felt like a desert. “But, but we spent time together at the shop today…”

Kai made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Alone, Aichi.”

“A- alone? With–”

“With you.” Kai sighed again, rubbing his forehead.

“Why?” Aichi’s voice was two octaves higher than usual. He knew – or thought he knew – the answer already, but it was too much to process when he was still trying to process his own feelings.

Kai put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You’re really hopeless, you know that?”

He was right. Aichi looked away, struggling to articulate even one of the emotions raging in his body; his legs shook, his stomach churned, his heart pounded, his face burned. He loosened his necktie. “I-I don’t know how to say this…”

Kai waited, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“I-I feel, I don’t know if you- if you- everything I feel-”

Now was the worst time to stutter through what very well might be the most nerve-wracking time of his life, trying to tell Kai Toshiki  _I have feelings for you_ without actually saying the words, because saying them would be irreversible and if he was completely misjudging this entire situation, he might very well ruin everything they had together.

Kai’s fingertips brushed Aichi’s cheek, and Aichi let out an involuntary gasp.

“If it helps,” Kai muttered, eyes focused on his fingers, “I’ll show you what I feel.”

Having never been kissed, Aichi had no experience to compare the feeling of Kai’s lips on his, the sensation of Kai’s fingers flitting along his jawline like a butterfly.

_Maybe I will faint this time,_ Aichi thought, because surely such a feeling couldn’t be real.

It was over too soon, with Kai straightening up and his own face with a tinge of red. There are a million things Aichi wanted to say all at once, and he ended up unable to say anything at all.

“I hope that was okay,” Kai said, shoving his hands back in his pockets. He looked down at his feet. “I meant it to be encouraging.”

Kai had always encouraged Aichi through his actions more than his words. In cardfights, in smiles, in meaningful nods and gestures. He wasn’t good with words, but this one action assuaged all of Aichi’s fears at once.

“It was,” Aichi managed to whisper, “thank you, Kai-kun.”

Kai waited until Aichi had closed the front door before leaving - Aichi didn’t want him to go, but Kai said he had an appointment,  _see you tomorrow_  - and Aichi slumped against the door, trembling fingers lifted to his lips, still tingling from the contact with Kai’s. He smiled as he closed his eyes. He wanted to commit the last ten minutes to memory.

“Aichi?”

Emi was home.

_Oh no._

“What are you smiling about? Your face is all red. Why’s your tie undone?”

“It-it’s warm outside,” he stammered, hurriedly pulling off his shoes. “I, uh, have a lot of homework to-”

Emi sidestepped him and peered out the sidelight window. “Is that Kai-san? Did he walk you home?”

Aichi’s face burned again. “Come get me when it’s dinner time, thanks, Emi!”

“Wait! Aichi! Why didn’t you invite Kai-san to dinner!”

Aichi closed his door and slid to the floor, trying to tune out Emi’s indignant yells about how rude it was for him not to invite Kai in.

He would see Kai tomorrow at the shop, and they would be together while they played Vanguard. And maybe Kai would walk him home again, and maybe then Aichi wouldn’t need encouragement to get out how he felt.

(But then again, he thought as he touched his lips again, maybe a little encouragement wouldn’t hurt.)

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure I wanted to crosspost this one (Aichi's POV is so hard to write?) but I reread it and ended up liking it enough. This was another tumblr kiss prompt (encouragement) originally posted to @ dorunasch.


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